My silly ideas and wandering feet

Hey y'all!

This will just be a quick one, I've got to get to bed so I can catch a train at 8 AM tomorrow (to Pisa!!). I have a quick story from a while back that will probably make you laugh . . .

The weather was finally nice one day in February and I had a bad case of Spring fever (as I'm sure you all can relate to) so I decided to walk to Assisi - it used to be a common city to walk to . . . back in the day. Anyways, I gathered my things - a sandwich of cheese and prosciutto cotto, a bar of chocolate and some crackers (notice that I did NOT say water) - and headed out of town.

The picture above was my first real look at Perugia from afar. The day was beautiful, perfect for a walk, and the traffic wasn't too bad (although italians are kind-of crazy drivers). I walked trough several little towns and, for some unknown reason, saw not a soul. I think it is because I walked through them during la pausa, a 4 hour break stores and people take every day from 12 until 4. It makes shopping a bit of a hassle because you have to shop on the stores' time, but it is a lovely idea.

Above, a sign that shows I was kilometers from nowhere! The walk was relaxing and I thought I was making good time. I stopped in a little town, San Ponte San Giovanni, I think, to buy a bottle of water and drank it in a little park where some young boys were practicing soccer. After a quick lunch I headed back on the road and really got myself in the middle of nowhere.

Some chickens I saw along the way.

This is road I ended up on. i wasn't sure if it was someone's drive-way or a road so I just kept walking. I ended up peeing in some brush alongside it before I started climbing the hill in front of me. By this time I also noticed that the sun was about to set and that I was only about half-way to Assisi.

I finally got to the top of the huge hill and saw Assisi a loooooooong ways away. I admit that my initial idea of walking there wasn't the smartest, but I wasn't silly enough to keep going with the sun nearly set so I made my way to the next macelleria (butcher shop) to ask about the bus schedule. The woman there must have thought I looked half-starved because she gave me the information and then a big pile of meat. Amazing meat. Fatto a casa (made in house) meat. I was exhausted so I hung out there for over an hour and chatted a bit with the kind woman and the jolly owner of the place who arrived a bit later and showed me lots of dead pig parts, including a pig head cut neatly in half! I finally made my way to the bus stop at the correct time - full of meat, warm and with an extra package of pancetta (kind-of bacon but WAY better) and coppa (a gelatinous type meat mixture made of everything but the squeal, quite literally) - only to have a bus whiz past me. Nearly crying (because by now it was dark) I decided to wait 10 minutes more. Luckily I did because another bus came and carried my weary self back to Perugia (note: it had taken me 4 hours to make it roughly 13 km, it took the bus 15 minutes).

And that is my silly story! Pictures of food and Ferrara (the city of bicycles) to come . . .